This invention relates to providing adjustable transistor body bias signals using body bias generation circuitry with latch-up prevention capabilities.
The performance of modern integrated circuits is often limited by power consumption considerations. Circuits with poor power efficiency place undesirable demands on system designers. Power supply capacity may need to be increased, thermal management issues may need to be addressed, and circuit designs may need to be altered to accommodate inefficient circuitry.
Integrated circuits often use complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transistor technology. CMOS integrated circuits have n-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor (NMOS) and p-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor (PMOS) transistors.
NMOS and PMOS integrated circuits have four terminals—a drain, a source, a gate, and a body. The body terminal, which is sometimes referred to as the well or bulk terminal, can be biased. For example, a positive bias voltage can be applied to the n-type body of a PMOS transistor and a negative bias voltage can be applied to the p-type body of an NMOS transistor. These bias voltages increase the threshold voltages of the transistors and thereby reduce their leakage currents. Reductions in leakage current reduce power consumption.
In commonly-used CMOS integrated circuit transistor structures, doped semiconductor regions form a pair of parasitic bipolar transistors. The presence of the parasitic bipolar transistors makes the CMOS transistors susceptible to an undesirable phenomenon called latch-up. During a latch-up event, feedback paths are created in the parasitic bipolar transistors that cause the CMOS transistors to function improperly. In severe situations, latch-up can permanently damage the CMOS transistors. Latch-up problems are particularly serious in integrated circuits using body biasing.
One way to prevent latch-up in a CMOS integrated circuit is to place power-up restrictions on users of the integrated circuit. These power-up restrictions dictate the order in which various voltage supply pins on the integrated circuit can receive signals. By designing systems to strictly follow the power-up rules, designers can be assured that the integrated circuit will not exhibit latch-up.
It is not always acceptable to place power-up restrictions on a system designer. In certain applications, it is desirable to allow an integrated circuit to be removed from a system and reinserted in a system without restriction. The process of swapping an integrated circuit or a component in which an integrated circuit is used in and out of a system is sometimes referred to as hot socketing. Hot-socket compatibility is highly desirable for applications in which a device needs to be moved between systems or used intermittently, but can lead to violations of power-up restrictions.
When a device is inserted into a system, electrical connections are formed between pins on the device and pins in the system. With commonly-used connectors, it is not possible to ensure the order in which the various pins will contact each other. As a result, the order in which the voltage supply pins on the integrated circuit receive signals from the system is not known in advance and cannot be controlled. If a user happens to insert a device into a socket in a way that causes the voltage supply pins to form connections in an inappropriate order, the integrated circuit may experience latch-up.
It would therefore be desirable to provide ways in which to supply body bias signals to transistors on an integrated circuit while preventing latch-up.